by Angela Hunt
The real danger, however, came from the mainland. The gruesome story had filtered through the Indian villages and tribes for months, and Stafford did not spare details when he related it one night to John White and an assembled company of colonists aboard the Lion.
Sitting next to her father on the deck, Eleanor held his hand tightly as Stafford related the terrible tale. “The men were living carelessly,” he explained, “and the savages attacked by treachery and stealth. Thirty Roanoacs approached the village—”
“Where we are living now?” Eleanor burst out, unable to contain her fear.
Stafford ignored her. “The thirty approached,” he went on, “most of them hiding behind trees. The savages could see only eleven of the fifteen men, so they sent two emissaries to ask for a parley. The two savages appeared to be unarmed, so the English sent out two unarmed men to talk with them. As they were embracing in friendship, one of the Roanoacs took a wooden sword from under his mantle and killed one of the English with a blow to the head. Then the other savages attacked. The unharmed English delegate ran back to the storehouse where the food and ammunition were kept, but the Indians set it ablaze. The soldiers ran out in complete disorder with whatever weapons they could find.”
Eleanor felt the blood in her veins grow cold as she thought of savages appearing outside her house, then Stafford took a breath and continued: “They fought for an hour. Another Englishman and an Indian were killed before the remainder of Grenville’s men, many of whom were wounded, escaped to their shallop. They managed to pick up four men who had been gathering oysters at the tidal pool, then rowed to a small island between Port Lane and Port Ferdinando. After a while, the Croatoans saw them leave. They have not been back.”
“I’faith, the sea took them,” Fernandes offered, looking around at the group. “A shallop could never survive the sea.”
The company buzzed with speculation until the governor held up a hand. “‘Twas their own fault,” John White announced solemnly. “And I believe there is a lesson for us in the story. We cannot live as carelessly as they did. We cannot let acts of murder go unavenged. Trust me, gentle ladies and men, the fate of the fifteen will not befall us.”
Despite the good news of peace from the Croatoan landing party, the colonists did not sleep on the island for several days after the return of Captain Stafford and his men. Every morning they rose and filled the shallops as the small boats journeyed again and again to the island fort; after a full day’s work they returned to the Lion and the flyboat to fall asleep, exhausted, on the bare wooden floors of the ships’ decks.
Eleanor watched Jocelyn bear the endless days of fearful waiting without complaint, but she was terrified each time she stepped onto the sand of Roanoke Island. Had her fellow colonists forgotten so soon that George Howe died in daylight? Had they not heard the horror stories of cannibals and treachery? And she, pregnant, and practically immobile, how was she to escape if a savage presented himself in her house or accosted her on the beach?
She would not let Agnes leave her side and demanded Audrey’s presence as well. Most of all she found Jocelyn’s company soothing, and despite her cousin’s pale, thoughtful expression, she called for Jocelyn often. Eleanor felt her demands grow more and more unreasonable as her belly grew tighter and her temper more explosive. Ananias had long since deserted her, first with the landing party, and now he drilled daily with the squad of militia her father had organized. And for what? So that they might feel safe enough to sleep again on the island and be killed in their beds?
The ship’s deck rocked beneath Jocelyn as she vainly tried to sleep. ‘Twasn’t the ship’s rocking that kept her awake, nor the hardness of the planks against her bones, but her thoughts about Thomas. In the seven days since George Howe’s death her husband had spoken little more than ten words to her and had barely looked in her direction. Something seemed to press heavily on his mind, but she could not guess what it might be. He had listened to Edward Stafford’s report of the landing party without disagreement, and had ventured onto the mainland every day to observe the select militia drilling under John White’s direction and Edward Stafford’s firm hand. Aboard the ship in the evenings, he consoled the sick, prayed with the weary, and nodded absently at her if she happened to cross his path. ‘Tis as if he is trying to distance himself from me, she had thought earlier that evening as Thomas lingered in her uncle’s cabin where a group of assistants huddled in secrecy. But why? And what did he mean that day on the beach when he said God had sent me to torture him?
Lying next to Jocelyn on the grimy deck, Eleanor groaned and mumbled in discomfort as the weight of her pregnancy pressed upon her back. Snapping at each other like ill-bred cats, Agnes and Audrey jostled one another on the crowded floor. Jocelyn drew her light cloak around her and stood up. She’d find more rest walking the decks than trying to sleep in these conditions.
‘Twas the middle of the night, yet footsteps sounded on the deck above. Jocelyn’s curiosity led her to the companionway, for usually even the seamen had bedded down by the darkest hour of night. Interested, she crept upwards and felt the warm August wind brush her hair from her face as she climbed out onto the upper deck.
The pinnace had been brought alongside the Lion; the gangplank lay in place and several of the colony’s men were filing silently onto the smaller ship. In the gleaming moonlight she recognized the white hair of her uncle and the glint of a musket in his hand. The wind flapped her cloak as she edged toward them, then she gasped as a hand fell upon her shoulder.
“Well met, Jocelyn.” Thomas stood behind her, his face hidden in a shadow cast by the ship’s mast.
“Thomas! How you frightened me! What are you doing up here? Where are they going?”
His voice was dark, restrained. “They are going where they need to go, and you should be below. Your uncle will be upset if he sees you here.”
“But why are they going ashore in the dead of night?” She raised her voice as wind began to blow in earnest, a fierce, steady bluster that shrilled toward the island and threatened to blow the pinnace out from under the waiting gangplank.
“I have to pray for them, Jocelyn, so go below and wait. You’ll understand everything later.”
He stepped away from her, but fury flamed in Jocelyn’s soul and her hand flew out to catch his arm. “You can’t just walk away from me, Thomas Colman! What will I understand later?”
His dark eyes were inscrutable in the dim shadow, but she heard a trace of gentleness in his voice, the tenderness a father displays toward a foolish child. “Go below, Jocelyn. Say a prayer for these men. You will have to wait until morning.”
And firmly, gently, he removed her hand from his arm, brought it to his lips, and left her standing in the wind-whipped shadows.
Under the command of Edward Stafford, the guidance of Manteo, and the blessing of Thomas Colman, the twenty-four men aboard the pinnace slipped westward through the dark waters. The high arc of the bow dipped and rose through the waters, sending a cool splash of spray over Stafford’s face. ‘Twas well that this was over and done. The morrow would either bring victory or death to the fledgling settlement. But if ‘twas the latter, the remaining colonists upon the Lion could still sail for England.
A strong wind pushed the boat silently across the waters, and Stafford saw Roanoke Island slip by to his left, then the mainland rose ahead of him through a ghostly fog. Too quickly, Stafford thought, the small ship silently beached itself less than a mile from the Roanoac village of Dasemunkepeuc.
The flintlock of his musket glinted in the moonlight, and the full significance of their action suddenly struck Stafford. ‘Twas the first occasion in which John White had approved violence against the savages, and he had done so only at the urging of Stafford and a few other assistants. Was this action truly wise? But English law demanded revenge.
After scanning the dark forest at the edge of the shore, Manteo nodded gravely to Stafford, who barked a single command. The men shouldered their g
uns in unison and stepped from the boat. The attack to avenge George Howe and Grenville’s fifteen had begun.
Edward Stafford realized later that he would remember the horror of that night until his dying day. The fires of the Indian town had burned bright through the forest, lighting the way like signal beacons. Like savages, Stafford’s men approached with stealth and silence. From their hiding places in the trees outside the village, Stafford and the others could see no movement near the grass huts, only a small circle of savages huddled around a predawn fire.
As leader of the war party and chief avenger for George Howe, Edward Stafford raised his musket to his shoulder, aimed, and fired at one of the men. His ears roared with the deafening explosion of the gun, and families staggered from the huts as the Indians around the fire fled in bewilderment. The English line moved forward into the circle of the camp, firing at will as women and children ran screaming into the dark woods.
Stafford moved confidently into the camp as the sounds of gunfire drowned out screams of panic. The savage he had shot lay by the fire where a red pool bloomed from his head. A woman with a child on her back sat by the fire with her hands folded as if begging for mercy. From a distance, someone screamed, “Stafford! Stafford!” and Stafford automatically turned to help the man in trouble.
But a scene of atavistic horror erupted before his eyes. The man who knelt now before him was not English. He wore the familiar painted designs of the Croatoan.
Stafford winced as a whisper of horror ran through him. Surely God would not allow such an egregious error! He whirled around as the woman with the babe on her back spoke English words, “Stafford, Manteo, Manteo, our friend.” The dead man on the ground wore a necklace of iron beads, a recent gift from the English.
“Stop firing!” Stafford shouted, thrusting his hand into the smoke-filled air. Manteo caught his eye and echoed the cry. “Stop firing! These people are Croatoan!”
The jubilant cries of the English faded, but the sobbing of the women did not end so quickly. Before the sun rose, Edward Stafford realized that the Roanoacs they had come to punish had fled days before; the Croatoan in this camp had come to gather the Roanoac’s abandoned stores. One Indian lay dead, and one woman, the wife of one of the werowances of the Croatoan tribe, was badly injured.
As he surveyed the confusion of carnage, Stafford felt the bloodlust drain from his heart. As English and Indians alike looked to him for direction, he gestured abruptly to Manteo, the unenviable man who had inadvertently led the English to attack his own people. But Manteo’s face was locked, void of expression. He was undoubtedly more horrified than Stafford.
“Gather these people, with whatever food you can find,” Stafford commanded, his voice hoarse as he shouldered his musket. “Bring them to the boat; we’ll take them with us to the fort.”
Simon Fernandes, who had come along to pilot the shallop, read the anguish on Stafford’s face. “You should be pleased,” he said, his smile gleaming from beneath his clipped moustache. “The enemy have fled, have they not?”
Stafford knew he would never be able to find joy in this victory. He had fired upon and killed innocent people; his blunder had been worse than Ralph Lane’s.
But he could not show his remorse. He forced a smile worthy of a triumphant victor. “As of this day,” he bowed to his men, “we live on Roanoke Island.” Without looking back, Edward Stafford left the camp.
On August thirteenth, in front of over one hundred colonists and thirty of the Croatoan tribe, the reverend Thomas Colman baptized Manteo into the Christian faith while John White declared him Lord of Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc. “This I do in reward of his faithful service, and according to the wishes of our lord Sir Walter Raleigh,” White announced to the assembly.
Watching from the crowd, Jocelyn thought she understood the reason for Manteo’s honor. Raleigh had instructed her uncle to so honor Manteo in the hope that Manteo would remain behind on the island when the colony left for Chesapeake. With Manteo in place as lord and overseer, the island of Roanoke and the coast of Virginia would then be held in Raleigh’s name until Sir Walter was ready to promote another Virginia expedition.
But Manteo’s unprecedented honor could have waited until the colony was ready to depart for the Chesapeake. It had been advanced because Manteo had worn a haunted look ever since the morning when English war party had returned with three score Indians and no clear answers to the other colonists’ questions. Afraid to face either his English friends or his Croatoan brothers, Manteo had appeared unstable, and Jocelyn knew her uncle and the assistants worried about his influence on the other savages. In order to insure that Manteo would not betray the English as did Wingina, Manteo was officially forgiven, baptized, and declared lord of the land.
Jocelyn wondered privately if the Croatoans bore Manteo any ill feeling. From Towaye she had learned that Manteo’s mother had been chief of the Croatoans at the time he had been captured by the English. Apparently the Croatoan had a time-honored practice of placing members of the chief’s family in other villages to control relationships, so before the massacre at Dasemunkepeuc Manteo’s “adoption” by the English had seemed to work to the Croatoan’s advantage.
Only God and Manteo now knew what his people thought of him, but Manteo’s formalized position meant that the colonists’ days on Roanoke were numbered. He would naturally want to set up a dynasty of his own on the island, so the colonists would have no choice but to move on to Chesapeake in the Spring.
And though the colonists had returned to their homes after the raid on Dasemunkepeuc, Jocelyn had yet to spend time with Thomas alone for Eleanor demanded her constant presence. As her baby’s birth drew near, Eleanor grew more and more worried about attacks by the savages, and Jocelyn and Agnes spent most of their time trying to assure Eleanor that the Roanoacs would not dare to attack.
Audrey, Jocelyn came to realize, could not be counted on to help Eleanor. Whenever possible, the girl slipped away to loiter with William Clement, whose intentions remained hazy but whose interest in the girl apparently had not waned.
Jocelyn began to look forward to the arrival of this first Virginian baby. After the child had come, she would be able to return to life with her husband in her own home, a life she had barely begun. And once she was sure of her own husband, she would marry Audrey to William, and life would be all it could be in the savage wilderness of Virginia.
TWENTY
The eighteenth of August dawned hot and sticky, and water poured from Eleanor’s loins at the first morning light. Audrey, foolish and immature, fell to pieces when she realized Eleanor would soon have the baby, and Jocelyn sent the girl away. “I believe I don’t know what good I’ll be to you, coz,” she whispered as Eleanor settled back upon her freshly stuffed mattress to await the travail of birth. “I’faith, I don’t know anything about babies—”
“You don’t—oh, heaven help me,” Eleanor sputtered, gripping Jocelyn’s hand as a painful spasm distorted her face. She panted for a moment until the pain subsided, then took one look at Jocelyn’s face and laughed. “Did no woman ever tell you anything about babies?”
Jocelyn looked down at her hands and blushed. “No. There was no woman to tell me.”
Eleanor paused. “Your father—”
Jocelyn shook her head rapidly. “No. He would never speak of such things. He gave me books to read, though—”
“Books.” Eleanor let her head fall onto the mattress. “What books?”
“Well,” Jocelyn began hesitantly. “I have read Ovid. Amores.”
“What?” Eleanor lifted her head and crossed her eyes. “My dear coz, whatever was your father thinking? What can a girl learn from reading a dead Greek?”
“A dead Roman,” Jocelyn answered. “My father wished me to know the thoughts of the world. He said that in order to appreciate light, one needed to recognize darkness.”
“Your father was always—impractical,” Eleanor grunted, squeezing Jocelyn’s hand as another pain grip
ped her. She waited until the spasm had passed, then raised herself up onto her elbows. “My father says the savage women merely squat over a hole when giving birth.” She grinned at Jocelyn. “Would you dig me a hole, cousin?”
“Never!” Jocelyn was horrified at her cousin’s playful attitude. Had pain driven Eleanor from her senses?
As the day wore on, Eleanor grunted and groaned and screamed. By noon, Elizabeth Viccars had been sent for; by dusk, Eleanor’s child had arrived. Perfectly healthy and robust, the first English child born in Her Majesty’s Virginia was a dark-haired, blue-eyed girl.
Jocelyn carried the swaddled child to her uncle. John White gingerly took his new granddaughter into his arms as a circle of English and Indian women watched with something akin to reverence in their eyes. “Eleanor has said she is to be christened Virginia Elizabeth Dare,” he said, his eyes misting as he beheld the miracle of life in his wide hands. “Her Majesty will be pleased.”
As Eleanor privately nursed her newborn the next day, the remaining colonists gathered in the center of the fort for a community meeting. All supplies had been unloaded from the flyboat and the Lion, and Simon Fernandes was readying the fleet for its departure for England. The ballast had been removed from the lower decks, the holds rummaged, the ships newly caulked. The seamen had spent the last few days loading fresh water and a cargo of precious wood, one commodity that was plentiful in America and scarce in England. Most of the settlers had been busy writing letters and preparing souvenir tokens for friends and family who waited in England.
But John White knew the mood of the colonists at this meeting would be anything but tranquil. John Sampson had begun a petition to demand that at least two of the assistants should return to England. “The assistants in England cannot be trusted to know what we really need,” Sampson explained, standing in the clearing as the other colonists listened. “And while our sea captain would dispute my words, mark me: in truth, not one of us truly trusts Simon Fernandes to give a true and fair report of our needs.”
